THE BLOG; Zipcar Invests in a Car-Sharing Start-Up

By JOSIE GARTHWAITE

Published: February 26, 2012

ZIPCAR, the international car-sharing service, has led a $13.7 million investment in Wheelz, a start-up company that has helped students at Stanford University rent their personal vehicles to other students on campus since September.

Hundreds of Stanford students are signed up and using 25 vehicles registered with Wheelz, according to Jeff Miller, a co-founder and the company's chief executive. Wheelz plans to start a network next week at the University of California, Berkeley. Additional programs at the University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles are expected to follow.

Mr. Miller, formerly the director of business development in North America for Better Place, the electric-vehicle infrastructure start-up, said car owners earned an average of $200 a month through the service.

Similar to start-ups like RelayRides and Getaround, Wheelz installs security hardware on participating vehicles to allow access with a smart card, and it carries a $1 million insurance policy to cover drivers during rental periods. The company has also created an iPhone application that lets car owners manage their vehicles.

Wheelz distinguishes itself from competitors by enabling rentals among real-world campus connections. To sign up for the service, users must sign in with a Facebook account and provide a university e-mail address.

Scott Griffith, Zipcar's chief executive, said in a telephone interview that Zipcar had chosen to invest in Wheelz rather than to develop a similar service internally because Zipcar would be better served learning from a partner, particularly about the technological aspects of working with an owner base.